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snydeq (1272828) writes "InfoWorld's Roger Grimes offers some hard-earned lessons in dealing with fellow employees who have been caught embezzling from the company, illegally accessing private emails, or using customer credit card data to buy computer equipment for their home. 'As technology becomes more powerful and computer systems become increasingly rife with sensitive data, one facet of the people side of IT finds itself under increased scrutiny: Trust. Over the past three decades, I’ve made wonderful hires, people that my gut told me were the right candidates for the job, then went on to prove themselves beyond my wildest expectations. But every once in a while, I’ve missed early warnings signs that an otherwise great candidate or talented, hardworking employee lacked, let’s call it, a strong moral compass.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Strong legislation that will weaken the ability of the trolls to shake down innovators is likely to pass Congress, but more should be done, writes InfoWorld's Bill Snyder. 'The Innovation Act isn't an ideal fix for the program patent system. But provisions in the proposed law, like one that will make trolls pay legal costs if their claims are rejected, will remove a good deal of the risk that smaller companies face when they decide to resist a spurious lawsuit,' Snyder writes. That said, 'You'd have to be wildly optimistic to think that software patents will be abolished. Although the EFF's proposals call for the idea to be studied, [EFF attorney Daniel] Nazer doesn't expect it to happen; he instead advocates several reforms not contained in the Innovation Act.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Git made it possible for programmers to coordinate distributed work across teams — now GitHub makes it possible for everyone else, writes InfoWorld's Jon Udell. 'Most people don't sling code for a living. But as the work products and processes of every profession are increasingly digitized, many of us will gravitate to tools designed to coordinate our work on shared digital artifacts. That's why Git and GitHub are finding their way into workflows that produce artifacts other than, or in addition to, code,' Udell writes. 'One reason is that GitHub has gradually exposed more of the underlying Git capabilities in its Web interface. Another is the emergence of Web applications that use GitHub as a platform. Then there's the cultural factor: GitHub embodies a particular way of working together.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "High demand, large workloads, and the changing nature of programming work have some developers seeking reps to help them land new gigs, InfoWorld reports. But questions remain as to whether this model, in which an agent hypes your skills and represents you in negotiations, offers enough potential to go mainstream. 'Before you roll your eyes at the idea of someone pimping someone else’s programming chops as a pretentious fad, consider this: Software work is becoming increasingly more project-based, and the days of settling into long-term employment without the need to keep an eye out for new work may be waning.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Researchers warn that a glut of code is coming that will depress wages and turn coders into Uber drivers, InfoWorld reports. 'The researchers — Boston University's Seth Benzell, Laurence Kotlikoff, and Guillermo LaGarda, and Columbia University's Jeffrey Sachs — aren't predicting some silly, Terminator-like robot apocalypse. What they are saying is that our economy is entering a new type of boom-and-bust cycle that accelerates the production of new products and new code so rapidly that supply outstrips demand. The solution to that shortage will be to figure out how not to need those hard-to-find human experts. In fact, it's already happening in some areas.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Yesterday's announcement of Azure Machine Learning offers the latest sign of Microsoft's deep machine learning expertise — now available to developers everywhere, InfoWorld reports. 'Machine learning has infiltrated Microsoft products from Bing to Office to Windows 8 to Xbox games. Its flashiest vehicle may be the futuristic Skype Translator, which handles two-way voice conversations in different languages. Now, with machine learning available on the Azure cloud, developers can build learning capabilities into their own applications: recommendations, sentiment analysis, fraud detection, fault prediction, and more. The idea of the new Azure offering is to democratize machine learning, so you no longer need to hire someone with a doctorate to use a machine learning algorithm.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "While it may have been unthinkable 20 years ago, Java and JavaScript are now locked in a battle of sorts for control of the programming world. InfoWorld's Peter Wayner examines where the old-school compiler-driven world of Java hold its ground and where the speed and flexibility of Node.js gives JavaScript on the server the nod. 'In the history of computing, 1995 was a crazy time. First Java appeared, then close on its heels came JavaScript. The names made them seem like conjoined twins newly detached, but they couldn't be more different. One of them compiled and statically typed; the other interpreted and dynamically typed. That's only the beginning of the technical differences between these two wildly distinct languages that have since shifted onto a collision course of sorts, thanks to Node.js.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "The government agency that brought us the Internet has now developed a powerful new search engine that is shedding light on the contents of the so-called deep Web. DARPA began work on the Memex Deep Web Search Engine a year ago, and this week unveiled its tools to Scientific American and '60 Minutes.' 'Memex, which is being developed by 17 different contractor teams, aims to build a better map of Internet content and uncover patterns in online data that could help law enforcement officers and others. While early trials have focused on mapping the movements of human traffickers, the technology could one day be applied to investigative efforts such as counterterrorism, missing persons, disease response, and disaster relief.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Nadella's first year at the Microsoft helm has brought both stunning successes and surprising lapses, writes Woody Leonhard in his report-card roundup of Nadella's reign thus far in Redmond. 'Nadella took office on Feb. 4, 2014, and his early reign was handcuffed by Ballmer-era inertia — and Ballmer-era flubs, particularly around mobile devices.... Today, Microsoft is still saddled with a two-faced incarnation of Windows and a mobile portfolio few could envy. But with Windows 10 rolling forward, as well as the combination of Office 365 and Azure a vital and successful focus for the company, Nadella's stamp on Microsoft is now more clearly drawn. Where does Microsoft stand under Nadella, and what's in store for the technology giant in the years ahead? Let our review of Nadella's first year at the helm be your guide.""

snydeq (1272828) writes "Simplicity vs. closures, speed of coding vs. raw speed — InfoWorld's Peter Wayner takes a look at how PHP and Node.js stack up against each other. 'It’s a classic Hollywood plot: the battle between two old friends who went separate ways. Often the friction begins when one pal sparks an interest in what had always been the other pal’s unspoken domain. In the programming language version of this movie, it’s the introduction of Node.js that turns the buddy flick into a grudge match: PHP and JavaScript, two partners who once ruled the Internet together but now duke it out for the mind share of developers.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Angry support queries citing problems with mystery iOS apps has led InfoWorld's Simon Phipps to discover the existence of several scamware apps in Apple's App Store. 'If you're a scammer looking to make a fast buck, it appears that [Apple's App Store] process can be defeated,' Phipps reports. 'The questions originated from a support link for a $2.99 app in Apple's iTunes Store,' which pointed angry customers to the Apache OpenOffice community, which doesn't even have an iOS app. The app in question, Quickoffice Pro, 'simply displays a gray screen with the word Tap. When you tap the screen, the app exits.' Further investigation has uncovered two other scam apps thus far. 'Maybe we could have expected this from the Microsoft Store, where developers seem to have been paid to show up and where scams were the norm until Microsoft finally applied controls. But we've been led to believe Apple's processes could never allow this to happen.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Esoteric puzzles, landmine questions, ‘cultural fit’ — Steven A. Lowe offers 13 tips to help folks navigate the IT interview process with confidence. 'If you’re an IT pro, chances the job interview is at — or very near — the top of your list of personal hells. Why not? Tech job interviews can be grueling experiences,' Lowe writes. 'To really ace the interview and minimize your anxiety going in, you must be prepared to an almost otherworldly extent, on many fronts at once. This means deep research on the position and company to decode what to expect during the interview process and to understand the company dynamics at as near the level of a current employee as you can.' What advice do you have to offer those who will be undergoing the job interview process in the months ahead?"

snydeq (1272828) writes "The programming world is fast proliferating with one-letter programming languages, many of which tackle specific problems in ways worthy of a cult following, writes InfoWorld's Peter Wayner in this somewhat tongue-and-check roundup of the more interesting entrants among this trend. 'A long time ago — long before Netflix, Hulu, and HBO battled for the living room — people went to the movie theaters for their weekly dose of video streaming. There were usually only two movies, and you couldn't choose the order. (The horror!) The double feature began with the big stars — the Javas and JavaScripts of the acting world — but then it got interesting. The second feature, the so-called B movie, was where the new ideas, odder actors, and weirder scripts found their home. Some proved rich enough with exactly the right kind of out-there thinking to garner significant cult followings — even break through to the mainstream. The programming languages with one-letter names are one such corner of the Internet. They're all a bit out there, with the possible exception of C.... Each offers compelling ideas that could do the trick in solving a particular problem you need fixed.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Indie developers take heed: Heads-down coding is a one-way ticket back to the corporate grind, writes Steven A. Lowe, outlining the 14 most common mistakes that end up sinking independent developers' dreams of being their own bosses. 'Deciding to go it alone as an independent software developer is a liberating experience. The thrill of being your own boss cannot be denied — neither can the fact that being your own boss means building a business. It’s no longer simply about the code. Everything is your responsibility, from paperwork to partnerships, and with this increasing burden come greater pitfalls that can sink your business.'"

snydeq (1272828) writes "Membership in the Open Invention Network, a software community set up to protect Linux against patent aggressors, has grown dramatically in the past year just as the tide seems to be turning on patent trolls. 'Why all this interest in OIN? It offers little protection against nonpracticing entities — patent trolls who are organizationally small companies, even if the threat they pose is expensive and large. But it does offer protection against an equally insidious threat: big trolls,' writes Simon Phipps. 'The big corporations show up with their giant patent portfolios, threatening legal doom if royalties aren't paid. Attaching royalties to product or service delivery is a serious issue for companies, reducing margins long-term — especially in business models where the monetization is separated from the product. But OIN neutralizes that strategy for those building with open source, as the big corporations in the network both license their patent portfolios in and commit not to litigate against the open source software in the Linux System Definition. The bigger it gets, the better it protects.'"